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Somebody is going to be crowned the national champion on January 9th and I think most believe it will be the winner of today's LSU Alabama game, myself included. And on the 10th we'll hear all over again about SEC dominance and how phenomenal of a recruiter and big game coach either Les Miles or Nick Saban is. But that conversation has been had many times and really there won't be anything new to talk about. So what will we all be talking about?

"Man that Andrew Luck was as good as advertised, it's too bad he has to throw to 3 tight ends."

"Boy Oklahoma State can put up the points against the Big 12 but just like Oklahoma got stifled against an SEC defense."

"Well we finally got our Boise St. answer... they're a really good team. But they're no Bama or LSU."

There are so many things we could be saying on that day but the one I'm most confident we'll hear over and over again is this

"Gee I guess we really did see the national championship game on November 5th"

It's really difficult for me to see any of those scenarios playing out differently regardless of today's winner. Stanford is a very good football team, they're tough, physical, hard nosed, well coached, and they'll get after ya... Ok you get the idea. But seriously they probably are one of the best 4 or 5 teams in the country and they have the best quarterback in the country. I think they would give LSU or Bama a good game but stars DO matter. Stanford just doesn't have the athletes on both sides of the ball to keep up with LSU or Bama. And Oklahoma State as good as their offense is, well I'll put it this way. Oklahoma averaged 60 points a game in November against the Big 12 a few years ago, they scored 14 against Florida with a month to prepare. And I'll take these defensive units and defensive staffs over that Florida group.

The one game I'm not totally certain how it would play out is against Boise St. It took me a while to fully believe that Boise is as good as the big boys across the country, but they keep demonstrating that Kellen Moore is as good a quarterback as any and up front on both sides of the ball they find a way to control the line of scrimmage. Boise also has one of the best coaches at preparing his team for a big game. But if I said it with Stanford I've got to say it here; stars matter. I just don't see how Boise makes up for the deficincies matching up with Morris Claiborne and Tyrann Mathieu or Dre Kirkpatrick and Dee Milliner or Reuben Randle or Trent Richardson. There are only so many special players any given year. Kellen Moore is one of those. But LSU and Bama have more.

So what's the point of all this? The point my friend is that in just under 9 hours we're going to see the two best teams in college football play each other. I don't know how the game is going to turn out and I don't know who is going to be raising that crystal football on January 9th. But barring a rematch with the loser of tonight exacting revenge I know this; whoever wins this game tonight will be holding that crystal football in 2 months.